Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

1998
Amartya Sen

AMARTYA SEN for his contribution to welfare economics.

Amartya Sen (1933-) was a Professor of Economics at LSE from 1971-77, and he continued to teach at the School on a part-time basis from 1978-82. His contributions to welfare economics are profound and range from social choice theory, poverty and welfare indexes, distribution, the study of famine, individual welfare, and collective decision taking. His work restored an ethical dimension to economics.

In social choice theory his research has elucidated the circumstances of collective decision making, for example in voting. His construction of welfare and poverty indexes has resulted in enhanced understanding of poverty, inequality, unemployment, and the underlying economics and values behind famine. His work has strengthened the development of rational choice and cost-benefit analysis, and he has advanced development economics with his analysis of the choice of technology in developing countries.

Sen's Choice and Social Welfare (1970) renewed interest in welfare issues, and his Poverty and Famine: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (1981) analysed famine, challenging the view that food shortage was the principal cause of famine and illustrating the causal effect of other social and economic factors in creating famine. Other publications include On Economic Inequality (1973), Choice, Welfare and Measurement (1982), and Resources, Values and Development (1984). In 1983 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the School.

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